Sedo has announced that domain name registrars DirectNIC and United Domains are now fully integrated with SedoMLS at the Premium level. This means that customers of these domain registrars can add their domains to SedoMLS’ instant transfer system and also purchase domains directly through the registrar.

Both registrars were previously integrated with SedoMLS but only on the purchasing end; customers could not list their domains with SedoMLS Premium.

In terms of .com registrations, DirectNIC was the 24th largest domain name registrar at the end of September. United Domains was the 54th largest.

SedoMLS Premium is similar to AfternicDLS Premium. Registrants at participating registrars can list their domains for sale and take advantage of instant transfer technology. That means customers at any participating registrar can buy the domains in their shopping cart and immediately get control of them.

For example, last week I sold a domain name through Afternic that was registered at Moniker but purchased by someone at Network Solutions. The transfer occurred instantaneously without any involvement from me.

From a registrar perspective, the Sedo program differs by allowing registrars to add their own mark up to the price.

Judge grants Motion to Dismiss against large domain name registrar and its parent company.

The judge presiding over Verizon’s cybersquatting lawsuit has granted a Motion to Dismiss (pdf) filed by Intercosmos Media Group, Inc., directNIC, LLC and Domain Contender, LLC for lack of personal jurisdiction. Domain Contender is a subsidiary of directNIC and directNIC is a subsidiary of Intercosmos.

Verizon argued that the entities had operations in Florida. The court found otherwise:

Verizon argues that the IMG Defendants are subject to specific jurisdiction under the long-arm statute because they purportedly have an office in Florida. However, as pointed out by the IMG Defendants, there is not a shred of plausible evidence in support of this contention.

Verizon pointed to a press release suggesting DirectNIC was opening to open an office in Tampa, but the court deemed it insufficient that a release mentioning future plans for an office proved that an office existed.

Verizon also noted that Donny Simonton, which the company says is CIO of Intercosmos, attended TRAFFIC in Florida in 2007:

In addition, the non-Internet activity alleged (specifically, the presence of one IMG employee at a Florida trade show) does not constitute minimum contacts with Florida.

Both The Producers, Inc., and Michael Gardner have responded to Verizon’s allegations that they registered domains related to Verizon trademarks. The somewhat bizarre case revolves around what DirectNIC does with domain names when they expire but are not yet deleted. Like most registrars, DirectNIC removes the registrant’s details from whois and places a parked page on the domain.

In their defenses, The Producers and Gardner didn’t say much, other than denying most of the allegations made by Verizon. They also have terse affirmative defenses, including that Verizon has “unclean hands”:

Some or all of Plaintiffs’ claims and/or remedies are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of “unclean hands”.

This basically alleges that Verizon is engaging in some of the same behavior that it alleges the defendants have engaged in. Although the response doesn’t elaborate, this could be about Verizon’s practice of displaying a parked page to its ISP customers when they type in a domain name that doesn’t exist.

The defendants also claim estoppel, statute of limitations/laches, ACPA Immunity, Communications Decency Act immunity, actions permitted by contract (that defendants are permitted to operate a proxy registration service), failure to mitigate damages, and third-party liability (that third parties are liable to The Producers and Gardner for all or part of the Plaintiffs’ claims).

Domain name registrar DirectNIC will take over domain names that were registered at Red Register, which was recently de-accredited by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Red Register had approximately 7,000 global top level domain names under management. Billing contact information was not provided by Red Register, so customers should provide billing information to DirectNIC to ensure their domain names are renewed on time.

ICANN has also taken two additional registrar contract enforcement actions. First, it sent a breach notice to CodyCorp.com, Inc. The registrar has not been properly escrowing owner information data and has not provided public access to its whois data. Second, ICANN terminated the accreditation of Desto! Inc. ICANN sent a breach notice to Desto on March 30 for failure to pay its accreditation fees. The registrar currently owes ICANN $5,427.49.